PURE MALARKEY!

Brian Malarkey has to of­fer. The South­ern Cal­i­for­nia res­tau­ra­teur and Top Chef alum makes his mark on the Aloha State with Her­ring­bone, his coastal cui­sine restau­rant that opened this spring at In­ter­na­tional Mar­ket Place. Here, Malarkey tells us about im­mers­ing him­self in lo­cal cul­ture, his new­found love for udon and where chef Lee Anne Wong takes him to eat around town.

How do Hawai‘i’s lo­cal in­gre­di­ents and pur­vey­ors in­flu­ence your cre­ative process when it comes to your Her­ring­bone menu and palate?

We found Hawai‘i’s seafood and pro­duce op­tions mind­bog­gling com­pared to what we have in Cal­i­for­nia. We met with lo­cal farms like Mari’s Gar­dens and re­al­ized we can play with these in­cred­i­ble in­gre­di­ents that have ro­bust fla­vors. With seafood, the sim­pler and fresher, the bet­ter and Honolulu pro­vides that for us eas­ily. We want to be lo­cally driven and adapt the menu to our sur­round­ings. We’ve in­cluded beef from Big Is­land, oys­ters from Kualoa Ranch and we in­tend to keep adding lo­cally sourced items to the menu.

What are some of your fa­vorite eat­ing spots here on O‘ahu?

Last time I was here, I called my friend Lee Anne Wong, who I’ve known for al­most 10 years, and we ate at her place Koko Head Café, it was fan­tas­tic. I love get­ting lost off the typ­i­cal “tourist trail” of eater­ies so I think Chi­na­town is a gift. I’m try­ing to im­merse my­self in the lo­cal cul­ture and cui­sine be­cause I think that’s im­por­tant for any­one look­ing to open a restau­rant in a new mar­ket.

What kind of ex­pe­ri­ence did you set out to cre­ate for din­ers at Her­ring­bone? How is it dif­fer­ent than your other restau­rants?

Her­ring­bone is Sear­sucker’s so­phis­ti­cated, grown-up sib­ling with an em­pha­sis on clean fla­vors. Like all my restau­rants, Her­ring­bone pro­vides a so­cial at­mos­phere for peo­ple to gather around and share food and sto­ries. To me, an amaz­ing meal is when you re­mem­ber the sto­ries shared over the ta­ble.

What are some of your per­sonal fa­vorites on the Her­ring­bone menu that you’re es­pe­cially ex­cited for peo­ple to try?

We fell in love with udon noo­dles and started us­ing it in our mush­room car­bonara. Now we’ve start­ing us­ing udon in all our car­bonara dishes across the main­land lo­ca­tions as well. I think this is a dis­tinct mix of two cul­tures that our guests will love. The whole fish ce­viche is a per­sonal fa­vorite. Nor­mally we use a Branzino, but in Waikiki, we will use the lo­cal moi. The lo­cal oys­ters from Kualoa Ranch are one not to miss. bri­an­malarkey.com